Marcus set the beer on the kitchen counter and pulled out a chair at Harper's small dining table. The apartment was modest—a one-bedroom in a neighborhood where electricians and construction workers could actually afford rent. The walls were bare except for a framed photo of Harper and Marcus at a job site five years ago, both of them grinning in hard hats.

"Okay," Marcus said, opening a beer and sliding one toward Harper. "Talk to me. And I mean really talk to me. Not the clinical version you gave me on the phone."

Harper sat down heavily, turning the beer bottle in circles on the table. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me if you're actually going through with this. Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you already decided, but you haven't actually decided. There's a difference."

Harper didn't answer immediately. Marcus had always been good at seeing through bullshit, which was why they'd stayed friends for twenty-three years despite having almost nothing in common.

"The doctor said if I don't do it, I'm looking at organ involvement in eighteen months," Harper said finally. "That was the exact phrase. Organ involvement."

"That's not what I asked."

Harper looked up. Marcus was leaning back in his chair, studying Harper with the focused intensity he usually reserved for electrical schematics.

"You asked if I'm going through with it," Harper said. "And the answer is I don't know. I walked out of that office feeling like someone had reached into my chest and replaced my heart with a stone. I drove home thinking about the Celestial Dawn contract. I called you thinking maybe you'd tell me there was a way to keep the contracts and do the surgery somehow, like we could schedule it around the work or something equally stupid."

"Is there?"

"No. The doctor was very clear. Two weeks, surgery, twelve weeks recovery. No exceptions. No negotiation with my own immune system."

Marcus took a long drink of his beer. "What happens if you don't do it?"

"I told you. Organ involvement. Rapid progression."

"No, I mean specifically. What happens to you? Paint me a picture."

Harper stood up and walked to the window. The street below was quiet, the evening light casting long shadows across the pavement. Somewhere nearby, someone was grilling—Harper could smell charcoal and meat.

"I get sicker," Harper said slowly. "The fatigue gets worse. Eventually, my kidneys or liver or something starts failing. I end up hospitalized. I end up dead, probably, if we're being honest about what 'organ involvement' really means."

"Okay," Marcus said. "And if you do the surgery?"

"I'm out of work for three months. I lose at least seventy thousand in contracts, probably more if other jobs fall through because I'm not available. I'm isolated in this apartment. I come out the other side and hopefully I'm not dying."

Marcus nodded slowly. "So the choice is between dying and being broke and lonely for a season."

"When you put it like that, it sounds simple."

"It is simple," Marcus said. "That's what makes it so hard."

Harper turned from the window. Marcus was still sitting at the table, still studying Harper with that penetrating gaze. The question hanging between them was the one neither of them had voiced yet—the one that would determine everything that came next.

"Are you asking me if I'm scared?" Harper asked quietly.

"No," Marcus said. "I already know you're scared. I'm asking if you're going to let fear make your decision for you."